Bittersweet
by LionessoftheEast
Summary: Frank and Clarisse have a sibling to sibling talk. Rated T for one word.


I swear I've rewritten this like five times, but hopefully this is the best one. I also can't stop writing angst, so be warned.

Please review. Enjoy! :)

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Written for the Thicker Than Blood Challenge in Percy Jackson Fanfiction Challenges

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Disclaimer- I don't own Percy Jackson, nor any characters or plots.

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The Ares cabin was definitely different from Frank's bunk back at Camp Jupiter. For starters, instead of housing all of Cohort 5, the cabin was only home to the nine or ten children of Ares who lived at Camp Half-Blood. Not to mention, three of the bunks only held one suitcase-those campers must've been planning on going home for school.

Camp Half-Blood was currently housing the whole of Camp Jupiter as well, a hard feat considering that, according to Percy, this was the most crowded the camp had ever been. This meant that four bunks besides the one Frank occupied, and those held by Greeks were in use by the other Roman children of Mars. They weren't in the cabin, of course. Like most of the other campers, they had a whole posse of friends to find, even when one or two were busy. Frank only had the seven.

Nico was showing Hazel around the Pluto- no, Hades cabin. Leo had enlisted the help of the Hephaestus and Vulcan campers to fix Argo II, which was battered from their hasty flight over the Atlantic, having flown/sailed through a hurricane and a windstorm to get to New York. Percy and Annabeth were taking a walk around the camp, greeting their friends and observing what had changed in the eight months since Percy had been taken. Jason and Piper were sitting on a bench, just visible out the open doorway where Frank was sitting, laughing and talking. Even if they had been particularly close friends in the first place, he was too socially awkward to approach them.

So Frank sat on his bunk, empty except for the one bag he had brought on the quest with him, and stared at the wall. The trees from the Ceres… _Stupid names_… Demeter cabin across the green cast shadows all the way through the windows of the Ares cabin, making the light dance on the boars and spears carved into the wood.

He glanced upward as the sound of footsteps rang out across the cabins, stomping on the cobble pathways. Frank watched as Jason and Piper looked up in alarm as a fast moving figure stormed past them. To his surprise, the figure stormed through the door, flopping down on a bed on the other side of the cabin from Frank. But what surprised him the most was that the figure was Clarisse, the last person he would've expected to be running back to her cabin in a fit of emotion. He had figured she would just gut whoever had made her mad.

His first impression of Clarisse was when they had unloaded the Athena Parthenos from the Argo II. Percy, standing slightly away from the group, watching uneasily as the Romans and Greeks interacted, had been decked over the head by the fiery daughter of Ares.

"That's for leaving, Jackson," she had said, crossing her arms and fixing him with a glare.

"Annabeth's beat you to it," Percy had replied. Clarisse had grinned and rolled her eyes before returning to her cabin to help figure out the whole diplomacy mess.

So definitely not someone to mess with. But Frank couldn't help it. He wasn't going to just leave her facedown on her bunk, sad or mad about something.

"Um…" he said, cursing his lack of something to say. Clarisse looked up, and Frank was relieved to see she wasn't crying. That would have been awkward.

"What do you want, Zhang?" she sounded like his grandmother, especially accompanied by a glare that could rival Percy's.

"Well, you look… mad?" Frank said, hoping that he had guessed right.

"S'not your business."

"I'm your brother. Sort of."

"I have other brothers. And you're Roman."

For a moment he wondered why that mattered, and then he realized that she had been at the forefront of the battle between the two Camps, watching her siblings being attacked by his own. He gulped. Was this why she was sad? "Yeah, well, they don't seem to be around, do they? Look, I'm just trying to help."

"I don't need your help!" Clarisse shouted. Frank waited for her tears, but none came. She seemed to be about to hit him, but not in the friendly way she punched Percy. One moment she was quivering with rage, and the next she had withdrawn, turning to the wall. Frank realized her gaze had shifted for a moment to one of the beds, which, unlike the others, had the covers tucked under the mattress and the pillow fluffed up like no one had slept there for a few days.

"That's it," he said, with realization. Clarisse looked at him, glaring again. "You've lost someone, haven't you?" It wasn't smug. He had said it in the way that only people who knew the feeling could.

She bit her lip, frowning. "Beth's just hurt. A stab wound to the side. She'll be okay. But…" she hesitated. "It brings back memories."

Frank frowned. It brings back memories? Of what? For a moment both he and Clarisse stood there, looking away. He thought about stories Percy had told, both in front of the Senate and on the Argo II.

_"I fought Kronos myself…" _

_"A war in the middle of New York…" _

_"Not all of us made it through…"_

"Who was it?" he blurted out, breaking the silence. Frank immediately regretted it as Clarisse glared at him worse than ever, her gaze cutting into his mind.

"You're on thin ice, Zhang."

"Sorry," he said, hastily. "Really, I-I am. I know how you feel. I mean, sort of. My… uh… Mom… she died in Afghanistan."

For a moment something flickered on Clarisse's face. "Sorry," she replied, quieter than before. "It's just… Silena, she died in New York. Drakon. She didn't deserve it… but it was my fault. And then Beth was my fault too. That blond little bastard heard it somewhere and brought it up. It was all my fault."

"Octavian?" Frank guessed. "Yeah he's a…" a stronger word came to mind, the same one that Clarisse had just used, but he decided against it. "Jerk. But I'm sure it wasn't your fault."

She was quiet again, something he normally would have found strange, but it this situation, he knew the feeling. "It was my fault," she continued. "I was an idiot and I was selfish and it was all for a stupid flying chariot. I didn't go to New York and she came back and pretended to be me so the cabin would follow her and the drakon killed her. She's dead and it's my fault!" Clarisse shouted the last part, but still no tears left her eyes. She wasn't the sort of girl to cry, Frank realized. Her voice was devoid of emotion, and he knew it was because feeling anything would hurt too much. "And then Beth… I stepped out of the way of a knife… and it hit her instead. It's my fault. They think she'll make it, but they're not sure. That's my fault too. I decked the punk. Octavian, I mean. No, I didn't just deck him, I beat the heck out of him. I…" She sighed heavily. "Look, Zhang, I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"It's okay. I won't tell anyone, if that's what you mean," Frank replied, shrugging. "If it helps, it wasn't your fault. Silena… didn't Percy say she died to help you guys? She was a hero, right?"

Clarisse nodded slowly.

"It's a bit bittersweet, huh?"

"Bittersweet?" she echoed, frowning at him.

"Yeah," Frank replied. "Bittersweet. Octavian made you guilty, but at least you got to hit him." She cracked a smile, laugh lines showing at the corners of her eyes. Frank grinned a little, standing up and moving toward the door. Clarisse looked like she needed some time alone. She was unusually quiet. A thought occurred to him.

"Hey, Clarisse?"

She raised her eyebrows."Zhang?"

"Just 'cause you're sad, doesn't mean you're weak."

Clarisse stared at him, though lacking the usual glare. She rubbed her palms on her knees, frowning at him, like she wasn't entirely sure why he had said that. Finally, she nodded. Frank turned to leave the cabin, but he was interrupted. "Hey, Zhang?"

He smirked a little, just a quirk of the corner of his lip. "La Rue?"

"You're an okay brother." Frank's grin widened. Acceptance. They were still siblings, Roman or Greek. She was his sister, he was her brother. He was okay with that. Frank mimed tipping a hat.

"Glad to be of service."


End file.
